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22 Aug 2012

Citizenship to Hindus Migrated From Pakistan

The grant of Indian citizenship is a multi-level and multi-agency activity. As per rule 11 and 12 of the Citizenship Rules, 2009, an application for grant of Indian citizenship is to be submitted by the applicant to the Collector/DM/DC within whose jurisdiction the applicant is ordinarily a resident. The Collector/DM/DC after satisfying himself regarding eligibility of the applicant to become a citizen of India, forwards the application to the State Government/UT administration concerned. The State Government/UT administration in turn forwards the application, along with its recommendation, to the Ministry of Home Affairs. Thereafter, the application is processed further as per the provisions of the Citizenship Act, 1955 and the rules made there under. Since initial application is submitted to the Collector/DM concerned and a number of agencies are involved in the processing of applications for grant of citizenship, no case/religion based centralized data of such applications is maintained. All cases received in the Ministry of Home Affairs are processed as expeditiously as possible. 1290 applications of Pakistani nationals were received from various State Governments/UTs for grant of Indian citizenship by registration and naturalization during last three years i.e. 2009-2011. Indian citizenship was granted to 764 Pakistan nationals during this period. The MEA and State Governments concerned are consulted from time to time. This was stated by Shri Mullappally Ramachandran, Minister of State of Home Affairs in written reply to a question by Sh.Bharatsinh Prabhatsinh Parmar and Sh.Parshottam Khodabhai Rupala in the Rajya Sabha today